// on the road
1am night sky at the yurt: a field of stars over the silhouetted dome and dark pines.
// subscribe
July 10, 2026
The Wave
Chasing music like a surfer chasing a wave: never caught, only ridden. Plus a 1am sky, a bozo moment solved by Claude, and a drone plan for the canyon road.
chasingthebutter.substack.com
Aerial dusk shot of the yurt above Telluride, Colorado, with the San Juan mountains silhouetted against an orange and pink sunset sky.
July 1, 2026
June 2026
A month in the San Juans, a trip to Red Rocks, and a wildfire. The full recap on Substack now.
read on substack
Aerial drone shot of the yurt and Sprinter van on a property above Telluride, Colorado, surrounded by pine trees and mountain views.
June 18, 2026  ·  Telluride, Colorado
The Vignette
Fixing a bike tire, Wilson Peak's beer-can fame, and what makes a video worth watching. The speakers finally move into the yurt.
read on substack
Selfie inside a van: a shirtless man wearing dark-framed Meta AI glasses and a backwards green trucker hat, looking directly at the camera, with van cabinetry and gymnastic rings visible behind him.
June 17, 2026  ·  Telluride, Colorado
The Glasses
The Meta glasses finally unboxed: first impression super dorky, portrait-only recording, but the audio is excellent.
read on substack
// interviews
Aerial drone shot looking down at Layng standing between solar panels beside his Sprinter van, San Juan Mountains, Colorado.
LAYNG: On Nomadic Life
Nine questions on life as a nomad in the American West. June 4, 2026 · Silverton, Colorado.
read
// latest video
A Hike to Clear Lake
Chasing the Butter · 2026
The Fishing Expedition Video
Chasing the Butter · 2026
// music
// hi-fi lonesome sound system
Hi-Fi Lonesome, Season Two
New music created in the spirit of 1960s country LPs.
all songs
Driftin'
Hi-Fi Lonesome Sound System · 2026
A Quiet Fortune
Hi-Fi Lonesome Sound System · 2026
Let's Roll
Hi-Fi Lonesome Sound System · 2026
What a Time
Chasing the Butter · 2026
▶ open the player
// field guides
FIELD GUIDES
Interactive guides to the places and topics on the road. The Night Sky. Red Rocks. Colorado Wildfires. More on the way.
all guides
THE NIGHT SKY
The constellations were never meant to be pictures. Who really named the sky, why it changes by the hour and the month, and the star-hopping routes that unlock the darkest sky in the lower 48.
explore
TELLURIDE
A name that doesn't mean what it implies, a bank robbery that made a legend, and an 1891 electricity experiment that helped decide how the country would get powered.
explore
RED ROCKS
The tunnel backstage holds decades of artist signatures responding to each other across time. The Beatles played to empty seats. The WPA road crew found Stegosaurus next door. The rocks are 296 million years old.
explore
COLORADO WILDFIRES
Six fires, 125,000 acres, three firefighters dead this week. The red stuff planes drop isn't what you think. Firenadoes are real. And most of this traces back to a 1935 policy decision.
explore
// rabbit holes
RABBIT HOLES
Essays on intelligence, effort, creativity, and the practice of making things.
enter
A glowing tablet displaying analytics data lies abandoned on a desert roadside at sunset, Monument Valley mesas silhouetted against an orange sky.
THE SAME PRESSURE
The algorithm is just the latest costume. On the pressure that never gives a command, the correction that always finds its way home, and what continuity actually means.
read
A man chopping wood outside a farmhouse, a steaming pot beside him
CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER
On the two kinds of people you already know, and the singular pattern that explains the gap between them. It's not discipline. It's something simpler and harder to name.
read
Grocery store shelf
OPTIMIZED AGAINST YOU
Three essays on the gap between what the label implies and what's actually happening inside your body. Gum. Seed oils. Private equity. Systems that were never designed with you in mind.
read
// games
GAMES
Word games, strategy games, party games. SIGNAL, REVERSI, PARKS, PEEING OR NOT PEEING, and more.
all games